In our Executive Seminars and presentation workshops, we hear some questions rather frequently. Each month, we provide some answers to those public speaking FAQs.
In many settings, speakers are expected to deliver while standing in front of an audience, no lectern (or podium) provided. Maybe they have a slide deck. Maybe they don't. But many of these speakers have complex messages and don't want to work from memorization.
When you could use a few notes and have nowhere to put them, what can you do? Here are some tips to help.
Keep Notes Small and Easy to Handle
Use index cards or a single folded page. Hold them in one hand, and don't fidget with them. Keep your other hand free for gestures. Practice delivering so you can glance down quickly and grab ideas, without calling a lot of attention to the notes in your hand. If you're tempted to use your phone or an iPad for notes, proceed with care. Both audiences and speakers are often distracted by scrolling on a device.
Use Keywords, Not Full Scripts
Design your notes to trigger ideas or phrases, not to be read aloud. Go with short bullet points or cues rather than full sentences. Structure your message so ideas flow logically and build. Think about the word or words that will help you recall everything you want to say. Consider memorizing your opening and closing lines, so you begin and end well. Don't worry if you have to pause and think between ideas: As we often say, pausing is a good thing!
Treat Slides as Backup
If you're using a slide deck, you can put prompts in the notes section or design slides with minimal cue words to guide you—so you're not relying only on what's in your hands. Take the same approach to the notes section that you'd take for cards; use key words not full sentences. Using your slides themselves as notes is not a license to create overly wordy slides. If you "project your notes" on the screen, the audience will read them instead of listen to you.
Rehearse With Your Actual Setup
If you can comfortably glance down, grab a cue, and immediately speak to the room, you'll come across as confident even with notes in hand. So practice the way you plan to deliver. Work from your notes or slides exactly as you'll use them, so you know where to look for the information you need. Make sure the prompts you've created are helping you recall the right information. If you memorize your open and close, practice delivering those out loud for a confident start and finish.
Applying These Ideas to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
How could you set yourself up to deliver this famous speech from notes on cards? One way might be to familiarize yourself with the scripted speech, then use key words that would trigger entire lines to come back.
One card might read...
Set the stage
- Four score seven / our fathers / new nation
- Conceived Liberty / dedicated proposition / all men equal
- Engaged in civil war / testing that nation or any/ so conceived dedicated/ endure
- Met on battlefield / dedicate portion /final resting place
- Those gave lives that nation might live
- Fitting / proper we do this
...in order to help you recall these words:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
As you practice and become more familiar, you could probably reduce those bullets further, identifying the exact words that help you recall the full line. Give it a try!
LEARN MORE
Consider how a message's structure can promote recall. Here are some suggestions for organizing.
Before you memorize the open of a talk, make sure it gets you off to a strong start. Here's our how-to for that.
TED Talks helped popularize the no-lectern approach to presenting. Here are some lessons Buckley coach Elise Partin learned from prepping and delivering her first TED Talk.
